I think its time for me to get a haircut.
The brilliant explosion of keratin and pigment that perches like a brooding vulture atop my craggy dome of a head has reached its zenith of acceptability. My gently worn woolen hat had up 'til now served its purpose honorably, striving to contain the radioactive plume that was just longing to break free and blanket the innocent countryside with a red-tinged fog of death.
It's not easy to yield such intense power and be forced to use it for benevolent enterprises, though. The worlwide community can never seem to trust us ginger kids, possibly due to either our random splatters of freckles and ghoulish complexion, or our overzealous religious fundamentalist tendencies.
We, as a community, have come a long way since staging embassy kidnappings and undergoing student revolutions. Just because we categorically deny a neighboring hair color's basic right to exist (strawberry blondes and their boorish capitalistic leanings must be vanquished) doesn't mean we shouldn't be allowed to harness the power of the atom. Rather than face economy-crippling U.N. sanctions, however, I felt it wise to lose the locks, or at least trim them enough to assuage the concerns of regulatory inspectors, while keeping my hair enrichment program under wraps and intact.
All proliferation aside, I can't even remember the last time I ambled down to Langley Park, the venerable 'hood in Prince George's County where I go when I need a shape up, or just for a chance to enrich myself with some sabor latino. It's a place where countless jaywalkers, street sleepers (not homeless people, just industrious folks who for one reason or another, felt it necessary to take a nap in the middle of the sidewalk) and paramilitary proponents call home, thriving amongst the dollar pupusa trucks and purveyors of south Asian gastronomical delights that litter the street. It's a place where liquor store employees don't waste time with asking minors for I.D., even with off-duty police officers always stationed on the premise. Fortunately these cops are more concerned with street brawls (which I've witnessed) and kickbacks (which I suspect) then with underage drinking, bringing back a sense of responsibility and integrity that hasn't been seen since the days of Tammany Hall. It's a place where Value Village (the one in Langley Park is literally the size of an airplane hanger) is the number one department store, and Bestway, with its three-story pyramid of Corona cases monstrously stacked to the ceiling in the front left corner of the store, is the most beloved grocery store.
It's also home to Street Kutz, the quaint little barbershop and salon I make my way to every four or five months, when I'm weary of scaring little children with my mullet-ish, horribly unkempt head of hair. Sadly my hair grows out, rather than down, so I can never truly have a mullet, which will haunt me for the rest of my miserable life, or at least until I convince the fashion world that having a pumpkin-sized sphere of curly red hair sprouting all over the place, a little something I call The Urban Volcano, is the new mullet.
I wouldn't normally have the pleasure of frequenting a place like Street Kutz, with its hip name and fake plant d?cor, but I am lucky enough to call one of the stylists, or "masta barbas," as they are respectfully acknowledged, my good friend. Andrew, otherwise known as the D-R-U, has been doing my hair for years, starting way back when kitchen cuts (in another friend's cooking quarters) were the standard. He's gotten a lot tighter with the shears since then, and like any dutiful customer, I have followed him to his newest work establishment. It doesn't seem to matter how out of place a little boy from Bethesda can feel in a joint where closely shaved heads, chin straps and pencil thin 'staches are the norm; the lively experience is well worth the record scratching sound that metaphorically permeates the air whenever I walk in the door. The only problem is that when you say want your hair "a little shorter" in a place like Street Kutz, you inevitably come out looking like a Marine; I've certainly learned this the hard way. Now I make sure to say I want it long, and if the moon is aligned just right, I might get to keep a couple inches.
I just hadn't been able to set aside any time for the crazy Langley Park mission recently, which made this last trip all the more exciting. I ungraciously overfed myself at my favorite all-you-can-eat Indian Buffet, perused some Pakistani porno mags at the International Mall magazine stand and got some silver-painted hubcaps and a chain-link license-plate holder for my 1984 Toyota Tercel at the local auto shop. The one thing I did not get accomplished, however, was the haircut I had braved the Beltway for. The D-R-U was apparently in Amsterdam, hollering at everyone in the red light district with at least two legs and change for a 50-euro mark. So until his return, please don't laugh or stare at me when I walk around campus in the boiling sun with a knit beanie keeping my Urban Volcano down. In return I promise to keep my W.M.D. out of sight and in good hands.
